Graduated from Higher Air Force School, Monino, 1963; Captain and pilot, Soviet Air Force; was selected as cosmonaut on 07.03.1960 (TsPK-1); OKP (cosmonaut basic training): 3/60 - 18.01.1961; was assigned as 2nd double for Vostok 1; discharged of disciplinary reasons; his space career was aborted; he went back to flying jets in Siberia; sinking deeper into depression and alcoholism, he experienced "a crisis of soul,"; in the predawn hours of February 18, 1966, while drunk, he stepped in front of a train near the Ippolitovka station, northwest of Vladivostok, and was killed. Whether it was intentional or accidental, nobody could tell.